Are School Counselors Impacting Underrepresented Students’ Thinking about Postsecondary Education? A Nationally Representative Study

Using the HSLS:09 data set and social capital theory as a framework, the authors examined which student and school characteristics predicted students’ identification of their school counselor as the person who had the most influence in their thinking about postsecondary education (N = 3,239,560). Results indicated that African American, first-generation, and private school students were more likely to name their counselor as having had the greatest influence. The article discusses future research and implications for policy, practice and training.